News of Polonia Pasadena, California June 2008 Page 9 Project in Posterum March 23, 1946, the AK soldier had six of prisoners summarily.[84] Then I received dozens of blows to my his teeth crushed with a pair of pliers, On June 18, 1946, the secret police caught head, face, chest, and the entire upper (Preserving the past for the future) needles jammed under his fingernails, and a Henryk Jarząbek (“Tolek”) of the portion of my torso. After a while I could By: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz chair leg jammed into his rectum. Finally, Conspiratorial Polish Army (Konspiracyjne not hear anything but buzz in my ears, pain Zimmerman ordered that Bil be locked into Wojsko Polskie – KWP). While making the in my head, and the room floated and fell The Dialectics of Pain: “the barrel of truth,” a closed container half- arrest, the policemen killed his brother, with me. I think I was on the floor…. After The Interrogation Methods of the filled with feces. After a while, the man Kazimierz. Subsequently, a brief rest…., Gajda began to kick me with Communist Secret Police in Poland, 1944 confessed and was sentenced to 10 years. I was taken to Kościszew and there at the his jackboot on my shin, systematically -1955. Glaukopis, vol. 2/3 (2004-2005). [78] manor house the so-called interrogation from my foot up to my knee…. His face Part III On April 15, 1946, the secret police commenced. Among other things, they reflected either sadism or drug addiction. He arrested Piotr Kosobudzki, an officer of the inserted my hand in the door crack, closing In Łódź, the infamous security officer was hitting me and smiled with a satanic PAS NZW Łódź. He left the following the door gradually on it and crushing my Major Adam Humer ordered his underlings grin as if deriving pleasure from the torture. account of his ordeal: fingers. Then they pushed a needle under to hold down the captured insurgent After many blows, the skin on my legs was The leading interrogator in our case was my fingernails. Next, I was taken to cryptographic expert, Second Lieutenant completely torn off. Gaping and bleeding the Jewish officer Frenkel. His assistant was Piotrków Trybunalski, where at the Military Maria Hattowska of the WiN. Then Humer wounds formed, and after a score of hours a muscular ape named Bocheński. Frankel Intelligence headquarters I was interrogated stood on her chest and beat her on her crotch my legs swelled enormously. I could not sat behind the desk and asked questions. To and constantly beaten with a whip.[85] with a steel-tipped whip. Humer applied stand up although they were forcing me with stress his own seriousness, he played with a In July 1946 in Gdańsk, the UB captured similar methods to another woman, the kicks to do just that…. When that did not pistol. Meanwhile, Bocheński, foaming at Danuta Siedzikówna (“Inka”). This insurgent liaison Second Lieutenant Ruta work and I continued to refuse to confess, the mouth, kept hitting me with a stick seventeen-year-old girl served as a medic Czaplińska of the NZW. Aside from they turned to another, more effective type [pała] on my head, repeating one word over with the insurgent unit of Major Zygmunt torturing many suspects, he and his of torture. They used a metal rod covered and over again: “talk, talk” or “sign it, sign Szendzielarz (“Łupaszko”). The UB men colleagues, including UB Second Lieutenant with rubber to beat me on the soles of my it”…. One time Bocheński broke a police stripped her naked during the interrogation Tadeusz Szymański, beat to death at least feet… I felt at that time that my brain would baton on my head, and then a massive chair. sessions. She was “beaten and abused.” The one independentist, Tadeusz Łabędzki, explode under my skull…. I could not get Finally, he beat me with a chair leg…. teenager stubbornly refused to confess. whose “crime” was to have edited up on my feet, so I was crawling on my One of my tormentors, a Jew named Later, “Inka” refused to beg for clemency. underground publications.[73] hands and knees. And then the ubowcy [UB- Zajdel, had a magnificent way of proving She was promptly sentenced to death and Between December 27, 1945, and January men] kicked me anywhere they could as if I false confessions right. He made me lay my shot on August 28, 1946 .[86] 26, 1946, the secret police launched an anti- were an inanimate object.[90] hands down on the table and he hit me with Antoni Jędraszek (“Żuk”) of the KWP was insurgent expedition in the area of In August 1946, the UB apprehended a rod [pręt] on my nails. If I withdrew my arrested in August 1946 by the UB in Drohiczyn. “Thirty-six persons were Lieutenant Edward Bzymek-Strzałkowski hand, that meant to him that I was not telling Pabianice: The so-called investigation was arrested. In many villages people were (“Swoboda”), who led the intelligence arm the truth. conducted by several thugs, usually drunk, beaten and tortured on the spot. The secret of Freedom and Independence (WiN). He During that interrogation they often who bragged that they were „the Polish police demanded the surrender of weapons was tortured cruelly and, consequently, changed their tactics abruptly. They offered Gestapo.‟ They were sadists without any by persons who often had none.”[74] attempted suicide by plunging headlong me a cigarette allegedly to calm my nerves. conscience or consideration. They beat me From December 1945 through February from a third floor window at the police When I took a drag on it once, they would all over my body… They beat me with their 1946 the Communist counterintelligence headquarters. Bzymek-Strzałkowski box me on my jaw so hard that the cigarette fists, a whip, and a stick. They kicked me. officer Jerzy S. tortured Wincenty O., a survived, albeit completely crippled. While either was crushed between my lips or fell When I lost consciousness, they poured Gulag survivor, in Koszalin. While serving delirious at the prison hospital in Cracow, he down. They dubbed this procedure, in the water over me. The fate of the victim under duress in Poland ‟s Communist was drugged and his interrogators secret police swaggering jargon, “to let him depended on the mood of the UB men. military, Wincenty O. was denounced for successfully forced him to confess his smoke.”[79] Often they beat and tortured me for fun and spreading “enemy propaganda,” i.e. “crimes.”[91] His liaison, Stanisława Occasionally, Frenkel was capable of pleasure, and to fulfill their bestial desires. complaining about the system. Jerzy S. Rachwał (“Zygmunt”), was seized in being perfidiously “kind.” While the tired One time during an interrogation session interrogated him at night, kicking his victim Warsaw on October 30, 1946, and tortured executioner Bocheński rested on a chair, they beat me so much that I lost and beating him with a wooden club. The for eleven months before being sentenced to Frenkel “sympathized” with my plight: “Do consciousness. I was dragged out on the man confessed and was sentenced to 5 years death.[92] you think it would be hard for us to corridor and doused with a bucket of cold in jail.[75] On October 23, 1946, after a fire fight, the announce that you died of blood water. After I regained my senses, wobbling On January 13, 1946, uniformed secret KBW and UBP captured two wounded infection?”[80] on my feet, I attempted to get a drink of police troops of the Internal Security Corps insurgents hiding at a farmstead near On May 14, 1946, the UB men of Łomża water. Then one of the torturers, called (Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego – Tuchola, Pommerania. One of them, arrested the grade school teacher Halina Obierzałek, kicked me and said: „for you, KBW ) raided Mężenin near Siedlce and Bolesław Pałubicki (“Zawisza”) broke down Sawicka née Komorowska (“Jerychonka”) you fascist, there is no water in people‟s Drohiczyn. They seized insurgent post under torture and provided his captors with in Cwaliny Duże. At seventeen, the woman Poland.‟ They dragged me by my legs back commander Edward Gregorczuk the names of 35 civilian supporters who joined the independentist underground to my cell…. As a result of such methods of (“Bonawentura”) and two of his soldiers, all were promptly arrested.[93] during the first Soviet occupation in 1939. total terror, a human being slowly became of them seasoned anti-Nazi and anti- Between November 1946 and January She continued her clandestine activities an inert mass of meat incapable of Communist fighters. Gregorczuk “was 1947, in Krosno, the secret policeman against the Nazis. During the second Soviet controlling his feelings and thoughts… subjected to incredibly cruel torture. After Bronisław P. “in order to force the arrested occupation in 1945 she served as a local Therefore the confessions, prepared by a he was terribly beaten, with his face Jan M., a former soldier of the AK and liaison of the National Military Union and secret policeman, were full of massacred and his bones broken, the UBP member of the WiN, to talk beat him many as a distributor of the underground press. contradictions. This caused more and the KBW drove him around the area to times during his interrogation, forced him to The search of her household failed to yield interrogation sessions and torture and so on. force him to denounce members of the sit on the leg of a stool, inserted his fingers any incriminating material. Nonetheless, Finally, one signed anything that one was underground to them.